


Please Wake Up

by assassin_inthe_scoutregiment



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Hanji Zoe - Freeform, Humanity's Brightest, Humanity's Strongest, LevixHange, Scout Regiment, Wings of Freedom, hange zoe - Freeform, levihan - Freeform, survey corps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 10:33:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14518578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassin_inthe_scoutregiment/pseuds/assassin_inthe_scoutregiment
Summary: Hanji finds out Levi is missing from the Medical Bay after an expedition went bad. She gets to him just in time to say goodbye.





	Please Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> I will be writing this from Hanji's POV. Also, language warning for those who aren't okay with reading curse words.

"Levi!" I called out while searching through the medical bay. The expedition had been horrendous. We'd lost so many scouts today, and I couldn't find Levi anywhere. "Have you seen Captain Levi?" I stopped Jaeger in his tracks. 

"Section Commander, he went back out in search of you." Eren answered quietly, shuffling his boots uneasily. My hands were suddenly on the cadet's shoulders, my eyes piercing into his. 

"Which direction? Eren, I need to know." The brunette froze in my grasp. 

"The valley. He couldn't find you and thought you were studying the abnormal in the valley. Hanji, he went alone." My heart started racing. That idiot. There's a reason I didn't stick around. That thing would have killed me.

"Who can still fight? I want you, Mikasa, and Armin ready to move immediately. Anyone else who wants to come voluntarily can accompany." I released Eren's shoulders, spinning him off in the direction of the other cadets. Gotta find Erwin.

The sea of green capes was interrupted only by the crimson stains upon them. So many had perished in the name of practice. Today was meant to be a trial expedition. Titans hadn't been spotted in the area in a few weeks, and we'd only taken out a handful of scouts, totaling maybe fifty. Safe within the walls, only twenty had returned. Erwin, fortunately, had made it through unscathed, save a few bumps and bruises. His blond head popped above a pair of scouts he was helping limp to the med bay.

"Commander!" I shouted above the din of scouts crying out in pain. His blue eyes caught mine instantly. 

"Hanji?" He laid the scout previously clinging to his shoulder on a stretcher and gave instructions to two other scouts to take him in the building to Moblit immediately. Erwin's uniform was blood stained from helping others make their way indoors, whether he carried them, helped them walk, or cauterized their wounds in the field, I was not sure. 

"Erwin, I'm pulling together a squad for search and rescue. Levi couldn't find me and went back to the valley." Erwin's face paled. "Jaeger, Arlert, and Ackerman are assisting, as well as anyone else Eren could convince. It's only a two mile ride there. As long as we don't stop moving, we can search, find him, and return within an hour." Erwin handed me his flare gun. I quickly holstered it next to my own.

"Go. Fire green when you find him. If you encounter any titans you can't handle, fire red, and I'll be out with a squad as quick as I can." Erwin paused for a moment. "Hanji, if you can't find him, if you have reason to think the abnormal killed him, fire black, and get back here as soon as possible, understood?"

"Understood, commander." Eren came into view as I spun on my heel, my mare led by her reins. 

"Section Commander, Mikasa, Armin, and myself are ready to ride. The others are too injured." Eren reported. As if on cue, Mikasa and Armin appeared already riding their horses. I took the reins from Eren, mounted my mare, and turned to the three cadets.

"Cadets, we are doing a simple search and rescue mission. Our objective is to get to the valley, search for Levi, and return as quickly as possible. Mikasa," I handed her Erwin's flare gun, "take this. If I am unable to continue the mission, fire green when Levi is found, red for titans you cannot kill, and black is Levi is believed dead. Erwin will bring a squad for titans if need be. Got it?" She nodded her head. "Alright. Let's move out."

\-----

"Who are the recruits? I don't remember seeing them in training." I commented to Mike while passing through the cafeteria line. "Are they the ones Erwin went after for the MP?" Mike didn't answer through the roll he chewed as grumble and nod towards the three, new cadets. 

They seemed quite connected to one another, almost like the families I saw within the inner walls. A young girl, barely old enough to join the scouts, and two young men. Their ringleader was a short, dark haired man by the name of Ackerman. The rumor surrounding him was he had come from the Underground, but was incredibly skilled with the ODM gear after robbing a set of MP's of their gear. I had yet to see him in action, and was skeptical of his skill. I'd been to the Underground once, and it is not the place to create strong Survey Corps soldiers. Little to no light, no room for maneuverability while using the gear unless you latched into the ceiling of the great cave, and poverty ran rampant forcing women to turn to prostitution and men to becoming thugs. 

This Ackerman, though, he surveyed the cafeteria with careful calculation behind his icy grey eyes. He didn't have the same, gaunt look many of the Underground's denizens possessed. His raven hair lacked the tell-tale signs of grease resulting from days, if not weeks, of not bathing due to highly restricted access to clean water. Though small in stature, Ackerman held himself proud and strong. His features were sharp, demanding of respect, yet they remained nearly unreadable. 

"Mike, let's go get to know our new cadets. They are in our sections, are they not? Plus, they haven't met my titans yet, and I want to see how they react to her, especially Ackerman. The girl seems a bit squeamish, and the other boy seems reserved. They need broken out of their shells." Mike's eyes rolled, but he agreed to my suggestions. 

\-----

The memory of my first encounter with Levi crossed my mind while atop my galloping mare. A mile or so had passed since we set out, and a sense of dread had filled every fiber of my being. Levi could handle himself, right? It was just one titan. He would be fine.

\-----

His name was Levi, and he wasn't exactly friendly. His voice, though, his voice was deep, demanding authority whether or not it was due to him. He was also in pain. The two others who'd been brought in with him died on their first expedition. His pain, however, meant he had begun to open up ever so slightly to myself and Erwin. 

That must have been why he was waiting outside my door after lights out this evening. 

"Hanji, I wanted to talk for a few minutes." His voice, always so full of honor and dignity, sounded small. My eyes burned with a need for sleep, but this man, normally so nonchalant and emotionless, stood before my door with his eyes leaking the occasional tear. I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes, mopping up a bit of the water they expelled from sleep deprivation.

"Sure. Room's a mess, but come in." Levi followed me in the room. I tossed my boots and harness by the door, hung my jacket beside my cape on the bookshelf side, and wiggled out of my shirt revealing the camisole beneath. Levi's eyes trailed over the small pile of clothes sitting beside my clothing trunk. A handful of shirts, uniform pants, socks, and undergarments littered the floor awaiting washing on the weekend. I leaned back on my bed, then patted the empty place beside me. "Pop a squat."

Levi shirked his jacket and boots atop my trunk to take the spot beside me. I laid against the wall, my hands clasped comfortably under my head. Levi took the same position. 

"What's eating you?" I kicked off the conversation by jumping straight to it. No small talk was needed. In the brief time I'd know Levi, we'd become fairly close. He didn't like small talk. He didn't particularly enjoy niceties. Levi was blunt, honest, and easy to communicate with.

"You said I could come to you with anything, right?" He asked hesitantly. I nodded. "It's Isabelle and Farlan. I keep seeing them everywhere." Nobody handled the first big death in their lives in the Scouts very well. My first expedition left me near mute for a week. Maybe I could help him cope better than I had.

Before the week was out, Levi and I had started sharing our rooms, our books, our time with one another as often as possible. Within a month, Erwin sat us down and told us to kiss before he lost a bet with Mike.

\-----

Another mile done. The valley was in view. Levi, you'd better make it.

\-----

"Damnit, Hanji, get a shower. I can smell the grease on your hair from over here." Levi's oh so friendly greeting broke through my train of thought. We'd had to put down my most recent titan, and it had been a few days since I'd left my lab. Notes scattered across several desk and table tops. They needed to be categorized and filed away properly before my next subject came in and created a whole mess of their own.

"I'm fine, Levi. You're not supposed to wash your hair every day anyway." I countered, tapping a stack of papers on a desk to even them out before dropping them in a cabinet. 

"Yeah, well, you should probably wash it at some point in your life. It's shining, and not in a good way. It's a fucking filthy way." Levi leaned against the door frame observing the mess my lab had become. "Fucking hell, Hanji. This place is a shit hole." 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. The only thing messier than my lab is my life." I joked while stacking a handful of papers into a pile. The dates were the same, at least I thought they were. Some of the ink smeared, but it was good enough. 

"Or your damn hair. Seriously. If you don't wash your hair, I will wash it for you." He'd taken a couple steps into the lab, hovering over my should.

I stood up straight, facing him and standing over a head higher than he. 

"Is that a threat, Levi?" I asked curiously, lifting an eyebrow high.

"No, its a fucking promise. Trust me, I don't want it to happen any more than you do." My eyes rolled involuntarily. 

"Or a challenge. Let's see how far I can push you before you break." I winked quickly at him. It was Levi's turn for an eye roll.

"Isn't that what I said to you last night?" Levi flashed one of his rare smiles, that could almost be mistaken for a smirk. 

"To be fair, you didn't have an issue with my hair being dirty then. Why the issue now?" I sat on the desk, leveling our eyes. 

"I had an issue then. I just didn't say anything. Seriously, Hanji. Get a damn shower." Levi obviously wasn't going to let this go. Glancing around the room, I decided to quit for the night. I stood up and began walking towards my room for clean clothes, a towel, and my soap. 

"Why are you following me?" Levi picked up his extra set of clothes from my trunk.

"I'm making sure you do a damn good job."

\-----

The abnormal from earlier laid dead, steam emitted from every inch of the beasts body. A broken set of blades laid on the ground near the shrinking chunk of neck cut from it. Levi had managed to kill the titan.

"Everyone, fan out. Shout the second you find him. There's blood trailing from the titan, most likely his. Let's bring our Captain back." The three scouts accompanying me shouted their affirmation, then disappeared by the force of their gear. 

There was a lot of blood. More than there should have been from a run of the mill injury. And it wasn't steaming. The trail led to a nearby tree, then cut off. I grappled the highest branch I could, and took off.

\-----

"Hey, shitty-glasses." Levi spoke his normal greeting to me with a smile tinting his words. 

"Hey, shorty." I replied, not changing my attention from the microscope slide containing a cross section of titan bone. It was steaming away quickly, but I had the chance to sketch the structure. My pen flew across the page, marking cell membranes, the evident placing of the nucleus, as well as a handful of other structures. It was rudimentary at best, but it did give a glimpse into why the titans functioned the way they do.

"Meet me on the roof after lights out, later. I want to talk to you." With the last bit of cell gone, I ended my sketch. It wasn't nearly as neat as Moblit's handful of sketches, but it was perfectly fine for myself. I turned in my chair to face Levi.

"Sure thing." He left the lab quickly, a slight bounce in his step.

Lights out had come much sooner than expected, leaving me running late to meet Levi. 

"Hey, sorry, lab work ran over." I explained while popping over the edge of the roof. My gear unlatched, and I walked towards Levi.

"I'd started to think you weren't coming. Then I remembered, it's you. You'll be late to your own funeral." I couldn't help but laugh. He wasn't wrong by any stretch of the imagination.

"Well, I'm here now. What did you want to talk about?" The roof of the castle was our normal meeting space when Levi wanted to talk. He said he found the starlight above calming.

"Well, shitty-glasses, I wanted to give you this." Levi handed me a small, jewelry box. It wasn't ornate, just a small, white, cardboard box. I pulled the ivory ribbon securing the top and bottom pieces. Levi watched in anticipation as I lifted the lid.

It was a ring. A simple, silver band, with a small, violet gem in the center. The ring I'd showed him months ago before Jaeger's tribunal in a small shop. 

"Levi!" I exclaimed, pulling the ring from its container and slipping it on my left hand. "This is gorgeous! You remembered my favorite one!" Levi, who had been anxiously observing my reaction to his proposal, was now laying on the ground, unprepared for my body launch into his arms. "Yes, yes, yes!" I shouted, kissing his neck, then moving slowly to his lips. 

\-----

"Levi!" I shouted, finally finding him slumped over on the highest tree branch. He'd escaped the abnormal, but at what cost? Blood spouted from his arm, or lack thereof, covering his uniform in crimson. The whirring of ODM gear catching up below me meant the others had my shout. "No, no, no, no, no." His eyes were closed. His hand gripped the silver ring he wore in correspondence with my own. 

The bang of a flare gun went off from the branch beneath mine. A plume of emerald smoke ripped through the air, wafting out in the wind. 

"Section Commander, is he alright?" Armin shouted from a few branches lower. I couldn't answer yet. 

His blood covered my hands. Without bandages or heated metal, I couldn't stop the bleeding. 

"Bring the horses to the bottom of the tree. Eren, help me get him down. We can build a stretcher between my mare and Armin's to get him back to base." Mikasa and Armin dropped from their branches as Eren launched up to mine. 

Levi was still breathing. There was still a chance of survival.

"Eren, help me lift him up." The brunette hopped across the branch. "Lift under his knees. I'll manage his upper body." After a moment of working out how best to move him, Eren and I had Levi removed from the tree branch.

"We're only twenty feet up. Grapple a low branch and jump on three?" Eren suggested. 

"Yes. One." I counted.

"Two." Eren continued.

"Three." We spoke in unison. Within seconds Levi was grounded. 

Eren propped him against the same tree we'd jumped from while Armin and Mikasa prepared the stretcher. I stayed at Levi's side, running my thumb over his left hand's knuckles mumbling his name over and over. Levi's eyes stirred for just a moment, revealing their diamond hue before finding their focus on me.

"Shitty-glasses." He smiled thinly. "Sorry I couldn't save it for you." My lips met his immediately.

"I don't care, Levi. You're breathing. You're alive." My right hand held his left as I brushed stray locks from his face. "I love you so much, Levi Ackerman. We're gonna get you back to base, and get everything taken care of, okay?" Levi struggled for another breath. His skin was white as snow under my fingertips.

"Hanji Zoe-Ackerman, I-I" His labored breathing wouldn't allow him to take in enough air.

"Levi! NO! Levi!" I shouted, poking at his face, ribs, anywhere I thought may receive a response. "Levi, don't do this. Levi, please wake up." 

Eren frantically checked for a pulse, for a hint of breathing for anything. Tears exploded from my eyes.

"Pl-please wake up, Levi, please."


End file.
